In an attempt to revive his fallen friend, Gou Shijima managed to do the impossible. He revived one of the most powerful Roidmudes ever, Heart! But more than that, this resurrection managed to merge the cores of both Brain & Medic into Heart's body as well. This unusual revival as well as it's unforeseen side effects would give way to the strangest development in Hearts' life, his becoming a hero! Uniting their hearts and Cores together, 3 Roidmudes become the Kamen Rider to surpass even Drive. Debuting in the Heart/Mach v-Cinema, today we take a look at S.H. Figuarts Kamen Rider Heart Type Miracle!

This unique form only appeared in the previously mentioned V-Cinema. And mostly because of it's immense power it's a self destructive form. Type Miracle once again spelled the end for 3 of our favorite Roidmudes, but not before they got some proper heroics in.

Packaging
This is Drive basics 101. Same style box we've seen numerous times over. The only new little flourish we see this time is the the new Heart "R" symbol on the box.

Main figure
This form presents a unique combination of two very opposing designs. But some how it all just comes together fantastically. Heart Type Miracle both as a movie prop and as a figure, combines elements from Heart Roidmude & Drive Type Tridoron. In Type Tridoron's case it literally uses identical parts. As we examine the figure you'll note a lot of overlapping text from at least the Type Tridoron review. Feel free to skip ahead if you'd prefer.

Despite the name Type Miracle, much of the main body from the neck down is composed of Type Tridoron parts entirely. From the AI Drive Driver (physically identical to the Type Tridoron Drive Driver) all the way down to the feet we have a totally identical parts. Despite what appear to be cumbersome thick feet, the tire ankles actually serve their purpose very well. They balance this figure great, and they still rock side to side a decent amount, but the joint itself is very very loose on this release so it's a bit of a balancing act. The waist is adorned with a new set of semi-poseable skirt armor. Themed around Heart's Rodimude skirt armor, here they're much larger and more regal looking, done up in a nice glossy finish. Each upper part of the skirt has a large heart on it. Hey did you know his name is HEART? There's also a black codpiece and butt flap attached to the skirt. Thankfully this whole assembly works so much better than on the Roidmude Heart SHF. The parts are pretty loosely floating around the waist, but that's actually really welcome.

For the upper body we have an identical torso and chest area. An item of note though, the Type Tridoron tire cannot be removed now. It's been permanently affixed to the figure. You could probably pry it apart with a screwdriver and risk breaking it, but I'm not doing that on a $70 figure. I believe that under there it still has compatibility with the SHF Tire Blending set. A braver soul than I could probably confirm this. In any case it probably is compatible simply because the upper body is identical to Type Tridoron. New bits up here are the shoulder pads, which are asymmetrical and awesome, each looking like a stylized Heart. The arms are mostly the same. Though the new Shift Hearttron is in place on the Shift Brace, and on the right arm we get a wicked set of spikes protruding from the arm that I guess qualify as this forms only real weapon.

The head is totally new. It takes elements of Heart's original Roidmude form and sort of streamlines them down into more heroic proportions. And then sort of crams it all down into a casing very similar to that of the Type Tridoron helmet. Spoiler on the back and fenders on the front, the whole package. I'll be the first to admit that this head design was lost on me when it was first revealed. But over time I've really grown to see the charm of it. Although from some angles he does look like he has frowny-face going on. If the eyes just didn't have that indentation in them at the top it could be avoided. But again, I like this design much more than most people seemed to.

So all in all this figure shares about 90% of it's tooling with Type Tridoron. The new bits are executed very well though, and the QC is almost as good as Tridoron's was actually. A few minor qualms aside this is still an excellent mold.

Accessories
The biggest shortcoming of this release, as with a lot of Web Exclusives is the lack of accessories. Type Miracle didn't use any weapons in it's brief appearance but it could have very easily included repacks of Drive's weapons at least. I mean, after all, it comes with hands to hold them for god's sake. Just something to help fill it out. The real pipe dream would have been effect parts for his Viral Blend attacks. But I know that wouldn't ever have happened. As is we only got 5 sets of hands. And that's that.

Final ThoughtsKamen Rider Heart Type Miracle is honestly a pretty bizarre release. Kamen Rider Drive as a franchise, has capitalized on suit reuse and recycling to create new forms and characters a number of times. I can't say that re-using the Type Tridoron suit was something I'd ever expected to applied to Heart. But it actually kinda works. And the figure is executed pretty damn well given what it is. If it just had some accessories I could really get behind it.

And now that Type Miracle has happened, and we have both Dark Drive & Drive Type Special on the way, I think it's about time Bandai got around to releasing Heart's best and most useless form, Kamen Rider Heart Type Speed/Wild/Technic. Often fondly referred to as "type man/bear/pig", Speed/Wild/Technic is such a sensible release given what's left to be made at this point. Ever single major form from this series has been released now. Frankly at this point a mere handful remain to be seen. Lupin, Super Dead Heat Mach, Jun/MP Mach, Type Fruits, Type High Speed, Kamen Rider 4, and at a real stretch Dead Heat Drive with the Mach Driver from the Ghost team-up film. Other than these riders there's just that elusive Brain Roidmude prototype figuart from a while, a possible gold repaint of it, and the non-existent figures of either version of Medic. Come on Bandai, we're so close! I'll buy them all!